


Roll on Red River, Roll On

by karrenia_rune



Category: Heartlines - Florence + the Machine (Song)
Genre: F/M, Fate & Destiny, Inspired by Music, Interspecies Relationship(s), Merpeople, Native American/First Nations Culture, Prophets, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 08:44:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14328792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: In a native village by a river, a soothsayer and a merperson fall in love. They try to resist their attraction for each other, but the soothsayer can see that all the signs point to the two of them being together. The merperson still isn't ready to give in to destiny, though.





	Roll on Red River, Roll On

"Roll on Red River, Roll On"

 

Once, long ago there was a wide rolling valley and a mighty river cut through it, and because it's watered reflected a certain color at both dawn and dusk one of the twelve tribes of the Iroqui called it the Red River Valley.

And, for a very long time, it appeared that there was enough room for everybody. Land enough for hunters and gathers, land enough to raise crops, to build their wigwam abodes in their villages, and stockades and pens for their horses and time to train their warriors.

And even when the conflict broke out as it inevitably did, and the lands and the waters ran red with a hotter, more vicious red liquid, still it seemed cyclical and as constant as the tides.

There were among this tribe those gifted with the Sight, and they called soothsayers; were honored among the tribe and given distinctions, one among these was the daughter of a mighty chief and a powerful soothsayer and her name was Shenandoah. They had the power to read the signs in the sky, the water, the land; and interpret these for their people.

But, perhaps unforeseen variable entered the equation and they came from a land even further west across the great ocean. 

One amongst these came hailed from a land whose own ancestors came from a land that seemed to always dwell just on the cusp of that nebulous place between land and water. A land of dikes and canals and sunshine, they called the Netherlands.

When the opportunity came for Johan to set sail and leave everything he'd over known behind to sail to an unknown land; naturally, he jumped at the chance.

The boy who would steal Shenandoah's heart was named Johan Gelles. He came from a long line of artisans who were born, raised and died within the confines of their guild. His mother, well that was another story, she was the descent of the merpeople whose greatest matriarch was the Niskie, Melisune.

Perhaps it should have been foreseen, perhaps not: As it was much like in a story it was love at first sight, for Johan and Shenandoah were fated to meet and fall head over heels for one another.

But that only works in fairytales? So, why should there be complications? If they were fated to meet why should there be resistance to their love?  
"Oh the river, oh the river,  
It's running free.  
And oh the joy, oh the joy  
It brings to me.

But I know it'll have to drown me,  
Before it can breathe easy."

****  
The first time they met it was a formal meeting and as one of the great chief's younger daughters, she was only one face among half a hundred faces in his entourage.

He too was only a part of the party sent to make overtures to the Red River tribe, for trading routes and exploration and how to circumvent other more violent and hostile tribes.

That night a great feast was laid on of fruits and grains and venison smoked to perfection and a bountiful harvest it was; for at this time many of the neighboring tribes were at peace with one another, and Johan and Shenandoah's eyes met it seemed as if an electric spark shot out between them and an unspoken agreement was made to meet later that evening by the shallow end of the river.

Fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, merpeople had a magic of their own, one which allowed them to magically understand the languages of others without having to resort the cumbersome and sometimes mangled use of translators. Wars were fought over much lesser things; this she knew. And with an unexpected heat that anger brought, she thought 'Why should this be so? Why is this way I feel so confusing? It is so cold, "The blood running through my hands. But in order to get to the heart, I think sometimes you'll have to cut through.'" 

****

 

Johan's heart was beating double-time half in hope that she would meet him-half in dread that she would not. but she was there as promised. 

She knelt down with one hand dangling in the water, her midnight black hair tossed about by the evening wind; subtle patterns weaving through it much in the manner of the cunningly carved hair-pins had. "You came," was all she said.

"Of course," he replied, taking a seat beside her. 

"Do you believe in destiny," she asked.

"I, I, don't know," Johan replied with a strangled chuckle. "I never thought it would feel like this."

"What do you mean?"

"What I feel for you," he replied.

"And do you feel for me?" she asked with perhaps more heat and curiosity tinging her voice than she had meant to do.

"I feel electric," Johan replied. When I stop to think about, I still can't believe that it's real, that you could feel for me how I feel about you. Then the love is warm. But, then I go cold all over when I think that ...."

She moved slightly over to rest one slim brown hand on his, to stop his trembling, to provide comfort and reassurance, and she silently cursed her wayward hear; for she, too had experienced those same sensations only heartbeats ago. "Just keep following the heartlines on your hand."

And then there were no more words and joined in the age-old rhythms of men and woman and the rush of the water served as an accompaniment to their heartbeats, and they brought their lips together, and by doing so it sealed their fate, and the moon floating serenely high above silvered their intertwined limbs. They would have many more such nights like this, but that would come later.

***  
Three days later.

"Run away with me?" she suggested.

"I can't. I have obligations to my father, my family. The man I answer to is an old friend of my fathers, he knows, about, about my secret."

"That you cannot stand to be too long separated from a source of pure running water."

"What's it like being part, part...

"Go ahead and say it," Johan prompted with a tiny sigh. 

"Part human?" she asked.

"I think you should take pride in it," she replied. I think it makes you beautiful.."

"I love you, Shenandoah. Still, he would follow the heartlines on his hand. Odyssey on Odyssey, land over the land, creeping and crawling like the sea over the land.  
***

And months later, Johan would come back, older, telling her, "You once asked me to run away with you. Do you still feel that way?"

Shenandoah took him away from the others to a secluded copse of trees. "I once told you that in order to get the heart you have to follow the heartlines on your hand. 

 

"I, I don't understand," replied Johan. "Are you saying yes, or are saying that as much as I might try one simply cannot fight destiny?"

"I saw it in a vision and the phrase that keeps on floating up from the depths of my recollection is this: "Your heart is the only place I call home. It cannot be returned."

"Then I will give you my heart and my hand. What a thing to do, what a thing to choose because in their vows they agreed to keep following each other's heartl-iines; and it was not foreseen that this should happen much to the dismay of Shenandoah's father, the Great Chief. 

They would run away together that following day in a birchbark canoe, and how a soothsayer and a merperson feel in love by doing so became something unprecedented and feel into the annals of history of the Red River Valley: so roll on, red river, keep on rolling on.

**Author's Note:**

> I set this in a more historical setting, in the early years of European exploration of the New World and Shenandoah as a descendant of a long-long of native people soothsayers (so I hope that serves, instead of a more modern city by a river. And the merperson is male.


End file.
